Hi
I inherited a gooseberry bush and the first year it was too late for fruit and due to the flaming pigeons never saw a ripe gooseberry last year.
This year, determined to get some fruit made a cage for it and the berries are ripening now, but are they gooseberries...
They go black when very ripe and taste just like blackcurrants, they start green, get a blush, then go a dark pinky colour then black which is too soft so have been picking them at the pinky magenta stage.
Now I come to think of it the bush has no prickles (a good gardener or what?)
so is it a jostaberry or a worcesterberry do you think?
Its a very old bush but still productive, about 5ft tall. I'm very fond of it as it's the only thing that will grow in the waterlogged corner of the allotment
Sue

Gooseberries are funny things. Most varieties are too tart for anything except cooking. I had a couple of bushes on the lottie when I took it over, no idea what variety and no fruit first year. This year they didn't look well but did produce fruit. However nothing special so I've decided they're coming out when it's actually dry enough to get over there and start digging.

You didn't tell me.....

Right, I'm cross now.

I had always been under the impression that gooseberrys were sharp little buggers which needed a ton of sugar to stop your mouth shrinking to the size of a drawing pin, an opinion backed up by next door giving me a big bowl full from their garden a couple of years ago which didn't half wake you up.

I've been a bit doubtful, then, about the bushes at the Hill, and hence the q about when they are ripe.

Armed with the advise from madasafish, I went to the Hill and noticed tonight that they are going a sort of purply colour and now have a bit of 'give' in them, so I picked off just 3 and bought them home with a stack of veg. Gave 'em a wash and with trepidation bit into one.

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It was SO FABULOUS that I cannot tell you - SWEET, JUICY fruit about the size of a big gobstopper. I wish I'd had picked a bowl full just to have in the fruit bowl I could eat them like sweeties!

SO have I been 'had' all these years, or are these not actually gooseberries......

God gave gooseberries for where grapes wont grow, or so goes the saying Hazel, as I mentioned in my earlier post my pax are soooo sweet, almost grape like. However, even when ripe the invicta can be a tad sharp.